It was about 7.30am when we started our journey from Kaduwela and our only stop was for breakfast past Avissawella. The scenery changed after the turn off at dehiowita, it was a gradual ascend with the not so good road conditions giving us ample time to admire the beauty of mother nature.

Along the way…

Eli hatha as seen from the road

Sri Pada close-up on the way to uda maliboda

It was 11am when we reached the end of the motorable road and by 11.30am we were at the trail head.

Nade…

At the trail head-pandeniya river crossing

The crystal clear water at the river was so inviting that we were tempted to have a bath before the start but decided against it which in the end was the correct call with what we were about to encounter along the journey.

Pandeniya river

Entering the forest..

The initial phase of the journey was through thick undergrowth in some areas with ascents and descents..

Ascents..

Through the thick jungle..

And obstacles….

Also an occasional glimpse of wildlife…….

Minding it’s own business…

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Time for refill of water and to take care of leeches….

As the journey continued we deviated off the track on 2 occasions in spite of carrying and following the trail through GPS, due to the fact that my friend who is using his GPS for the very first time had missed a couple of waypoints when downloading the trail to his device.

We were lost for more than 2 hours…climbing a mountain not mentioned in the Lakdasun trail guide, the elephant dung, foot marks created by elephants with their constant travelling along the paths and the changing GPS readings to the next waypoint made us realise that we were lost.

Elephant dung…

Lost…deciding which way to go with the help of Lakdasun guide..

View of the surroundings on top of the wrong mountain..

Climbing back down…..

Back down..

Back on the correct path…

After getting back to the last correct waypoint and searching for any clues to identify the correct path, did we realize that there are cuts made by knives on the trees on either side of the path and other markings…these cuts and markings helped us when we got lost again afterwards .We were very much hungry by this time, the chocolates and the biscuits was not enough and was yearning for some pol rotti and katta sambal..we were desperate to reach the kuruwita trail by now…

Having lost a considerable amount of time being lost it was almost 6pm and dark when we reached the kuru ganga ..

Kuru ganga

Since the light was fading, it was very much difficult for us to find the correct point of crossing and we were scurrying to find the crossing point not wanting to spend the night in the jungle.

After about 30 minutes of searching it was pitch black when we found the crossing point and entered into the jungle again..

Finally…the entrance to the jungle after crossing Kuru ganga

And into the darkness…

It was an eventful 1 ½ hour hike with constant slips and falling over rocks in the wet conditions till we arrived at the erathna trail at around 8.30pm.

Kuruwita-erathna trail

After a 1 hour rest and change of wet clothes at the ‘indikatupana’ ambalama, we were back on the trail looking for a shop that would serve us ‘pol rotti’ and ‘kiri kopi’ and it was not until we came to ‘galwangediya’ did we find the one and only shop.

After a meal of rotti, soyameat, katta sambal and kiri kopi some of us decided to take a nap..

Some of us decided to take a nap..

4th glass of kiri kopi before the final ascent..

At about 1.30am we started the final phase of the climb and reached the summit at around 3am.
The summit was crowded with people eagerly awaiting the sunrise and was a dreadful 3 hour stay at the top with the gust of wind making the cold unbearable…

It wasn’t the day for a clear view of the sunrise because of the heavy mist and cloud cover.

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Mist and cloud cover dampened everyone’s expectations..

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At the summit

At about 6.45am it was time to leave..

It was time to leave

The views when getting down was stunning..

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Two becomes one….meeting of two rivers

It was about 3pm when we reached the end of the trail at erathna and after a cool dip in the river it was time for us to head back home after one unforgettable journey..

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